Recently, SoftBank Group in Tokyo received the Pike's Peak Performance Award from The Bob Pike Group because of its new inhouse training university. In keeping with its corporate vision to realize workstyle innovation, SoftBank made a strategic decision in 2009 to create SoftBank University and begin moving its outsourced training in-house "to foster their strong corporate culture and effectively transfer the knowledge and skills that they have within their organization," said Ayako Nakamura, principal at Dynamic Human Capital, who nominated SoftBank for the award. At that time, SoftBank implemented its Internally Certified Instructor System. "Since then, they have been developing training programs and internal trainers, and now 50 percent of the training is developed and facilitated internally."
The Pike’s Peak Performance Award is a formal recognition of trainers or organizations who have transformed their training by implementing participant-centered, results-based techniques championed by Bob Pike. These techniques involve participants in their own learning instead of relying on an instructor-led, lecture-based format. The award recipients have demonstrated improved retention and training transfer in their sessions by implementing these methods as well as an increased tie-in to business objectives.
After receiving the award, Kensuke Takeda, HR Development Section 2 manager, said, "We will continue to take on the challenge of developing employees' potential ability by making full use of the participant-centered method."
As of 2012, SoftBank's Human Resource Development Department had designed 36 programs while continuing to implement participant-centered and interactive techniques into its courses. Since making these changes, overall satisfaction is at 90 percent and overall ratings for trainers is at about 91 percent. The company has also made a significant savings in its expenditures.
"By successfully bringing training in-house and supporting that move by providing Bob Pike's Train-the-Trainer Boot Camp training to all volunteer trainers, who now deem the role an honor despite no pay increase, they have cut their expenditures on outside consultants," said Keith Baudin, director of client solutions for The Bob Pike Group. Sixty-five of SoftBank's 79 trainers have voluntarily gone through the Boot Camp training.
The SoftBank Group comprises the pure holding company SoftBank Corp and its more than 1,300 subsidiaries and affiliates that offer a comprehensive range of mobile communications, fixed-line communications and Internet services.
